All My Darling Daughters

Over the weekend, while visiting my boyfriend’s parents (both from Hong Kong), I watched my first episode of The Voice of China. Why? Because this is a 24-hour job, people.
China’s Voice also features four coaches, in a vague demographic echo of the U.S. version: their number includes one woman, and one rap and R&amp;B artist who is clearly the producers’ tacit substitute for a black judge. (I swear I am not lying when I tell you he goes by the name Harlem.).
To be fair, my in-depth ethnographic study lasted all of 10 minutes, but a highlight among the performances I saw was a solid rendition of “Halo,” in English. Nothing would give me greater delight than to force The Voice’s American contestants to sing in Mandarin for a week, as I doubt many could muster as much as a ni hao.
Back to Hollywood. Last night’s episode begins with Michelle Brooks-Thompson, whose twin daughters are apparently always dressed alike — fortunately skewing cute rather than utterly terrifying.
She belts the Tina Turner staple “Proud Mary,” strutting across the stage and charming the audience to their feet. Michelle has her pick of all non-Blake judges, who sing (see what I did there?) the praises of her “flawless,” soulful voice.
Michelle’s Result: Team Adam
A native of Peru via Miami, Diego Val is a cutie cursed with a haircut that’s a little too Gary Oldman-in-The Fifth Element.
As a child, he contracted Perthes Disease, a devastating illness that left him bed-ridden for more than a year. He now gives back by performing music at children’s hospitals — the adorable sick kids he serenades seem to appreciate his company, but I can’t help but think most of them would’ve preferred a visit from a face-painting clown or a puppy.
His smooth and breezy take on “Animal” (with guitar) wins him a place on Team Cee Lo. Um,

S4:E3 “Certainly we’ve got to talk about it, because I’m going to get an ulcer.” – Alex
The first real housewives we caught up with this episode were Kelly and LuAnn, who went to a salon to get their nails done and talk about how Kelly wants to meet another man so she can have another baby. LuAnn invited her to a party that her wine distributing younger boyfriend Jacques was throwing, and Kelly’s ears perked up when LuAnn said there’d be a lot of Europeans there (as if the previous Europeans she had married and divorced were just duds, like soggy blueberries on a fruit tart or something). But things got more interesting when Alex met Sonja for lunch. Sonja showed up in this gigantic Russian hat and yoga clothes, and immediately told Alex that getting together over lunch to relive how great of a grand marshal at the marriage equality march she was and remembering the fight she had with Alex at her self-portrait unveiling just wasn’t her thing. Alex said that neither one of them had to agree on what was more important on the day of the march (whether it be the march for marriage equality or that Sonja was its grand marshal). Sonja agreed that they were going to disagree on that matter, and then Alex brought up Sonja’s decision to throw her out of her house at the party for her artist boyfriend, Brian. Sonja explained that she asked Alex to leave because she worried that Alex’s husband Simon (in his rainbow tuxedo and all) would arrive at the party and then continue to yell in her ear the way he did at the march.
“I had to fire one of my nannies.” – Cindy
Cindy met Kelly at a restaurant and showed up rather frazzled. Cindy explained she was trembling because she was suffering from residual unpleasantness she experienced earlier that day, when she had to fire one of her nannies (it truly is a testament to how much help Cindy has with her daughters in that after letting go a member of her staff, she is still able to meet Kelly for some beverages without leaving her children under the supervision of just ONE person). She said she let the lady go because she “had to do the right thing for the children” and credited herself with being overly nice and overly sweet, but then said the nanny just wasn’t nice to her and flipped her hair in a way that Cindy thought was disrespectful. The kicker was, though, that Cindy finally admitted she didn’t actually fire her nanny – she called up her partner-in-vagina-business brother and had him do it. Then Kelly took 20 minutes to write an email to Ramona saying that she can’t come to her party where she'd be honored as a businesswoman.
“I highly suggest swallowing.” – LuAnn
LuAnn invited most of the women to her Jacques’s wine party mixer but before it got started, LuAnn and her boyfriend sat down in the space and had some cocktails themselves. As the boyfriend was explaining the event to LuAnn, it became clear that this really was like speed dating and it was shocking that the ex-Countess would date a man who runs speed dating events under the guises of wine tastings. Cindy didn’t have a very good time though, because the first guy who sat down at her table was 23 and he admitted that she could be his mother. The interesting thing about Cindy is she pretends like she loves men so much, but it’s clear that she hates them and is quite content on the fact that the only man in her life is her brother. She prides herself on having everything she’s ever wanted “on her own terms,” but then she tells the other women how much she’d love to have a man in her life -- but just the way her pupils focus on potential suitors indicates she’d just rather skip it. Kelly had the best time of her life because she sat down with Cindy’s young castoff and once she learned that he was an actor and actors don't place instruments or dance, she made him pretend like he was dying of cancer and propose to her because she had seen Due Date the night before and was quite taken with the scene where Robert Downey Jr. and Zack Galifianakis are in the bathroom and Downey asks Galifiankis to do some acting.
“I got a drunk text from Ramona saying, ‘If you don’t support me, I can’t support you.” – Kelly
Kelly and Cindy took their gaggle of children to somewhere that suspiciously looked like Colonial Williamsburg but it was just Governor’s Island (props to Governor’s Island for finally being used for something other than a subway advertisement!) to celebrate Alex’s birthday. Kelly told Cindy that Ramona sent her a text at 1:30 AM a few nights ago that said if Kelly couldn’t come to Ramona’s event and support her, then Kelly can’t expect to receive support from Ramona either. The best part was when Alex was hugging Simon and thanking him for how the only diamond she was getting this year was a cookie, a kid happened to bump his head into her glass of champagne and she spilled the whole glass on him. This led Cindy to depart the event immediately because her children were conceived in such a way that they were born hydrophobic.
“This is fucked.” – David Meister
Ramona has a friend named David Meister, who’s a designer whose clothes she wears and whose runways she occasionally walks in. Last year, she walked in one of his shows and everyone was stunned with how much her eyes protruded out of her head so this year, people told Ramona to make “bedroom eyes” and squint a little bit like she’s trying to figure out what kind of gas to put in her car. But once she was on the runway, Ramona did what Ramona does and opened her eyes the way they were meant to be opened.
“Now what is, exactly, a Brazilian bikini wax?” – Kelly
Kelly, who claims to have had a career in modeling and a marriage to a very famous fashion photographer, hilariously showed up to Cindy’s hair removal spa with Sonja and LuAnn and asked Cindy what a Brazilian wax was. Nobody answered because apparently nobody knew, and LuAnn felt the need to tell everyone it was the first time she’d ever discussed waxing with other people. Cindy explained the difference between waxing and laser hair removal (with lasers the stuff never grows back), and LuAnn seemed to dislike the fact that with a laser, you can’t “change your mind.” Sonja agreed that it was too much for her to get a laser Brazilian bikini wax because the fashion changes and sometimes you want a busier downtown and sometimes you want a calmer downtown. But Cindy said it wasn’t that big a deal because she didn’t believe she was going to wake up one morning at 80 years old and wish she “had a little bit down there.” The ex-Countess was eventually convinced that bare was better and got a wax because “you’ve got to try everything once, darling.” Kelly was completely surprised and so inspired that she went and got a wax too. Then they had cupcakes.
“I feel lucky and grateful that I really don’t have to watch my weight.” – Alex
We got a glimpse into the beginning of Alex’s career as a 30 year old model, and it consisted of a voiceover of Alex explaining how she has no problems with her weight while we saw video of Alex asking for clips because a skirt was too small and fearing that her hips were going to rip a blue dress. We also learned that in Alex’s head, modeling is how she’s going to make money for her family since she and Simon decided to have separate finances one day. She did not seem to consider how everyone helping her get ready was younger than she was, or conceive of the fact that real models generally aren’t in situations where they spill champagne on their children at Governor’s Island. As she was posing for the photographer, he kept telling her to do “softer” and “lips closed” and “chin down,” all of which are things I assume regular models walk into a shoot already knowing. Alex said in her head, she was picturing Swan Lake and ballet, but the photographer told her to stop because he “didn’t need that much drama in the eyes.”
“It looks like you stuck your finger in an electric shock.” – Ramona
Sonja, Cindy and Alex all showed up to the event where Ramona was being honored for her belief that women should have their own money and be powerful businesswomen. But when Alex walked in the door, everyone was shocked to see how crazy her hair was and they described it as looking like she “stuck her finger in an electric shock,” which of course isn’t a real thing. Alex said her photo shoot and the dinner were within a few minutes of each other, so she had no time to get her hair in order and that’s why it looked like she got electrocuted, everyone. Eventually the time came for Ramona to go up onstage and speak about her achievements as a businesswoman despite having attended a two year college, and Sonja was so inspired by her words that she kept whispering into Cindy’s ear things like, “it’s a hard fight” and “after two years of college, you’re not ready [to enter the workforce]” and nodding in Cindy’s direction and suggesting she should be doing what Ramona is speaking about and thinking three steps ahead of everyone else. Towards the end of the speech Ramona got her cards mixed up (which was a great plug for Ramona Pino Grigio) and when it was over, she went back to the table and thanked everyone for coming and all the women fought over who was more inspiring.

Synopsis

This plotline for this unsuccessful pilot involves a judge with four daughters, four prospective sons-in-law, and four weddings scheduled for the same day. Subsequently much of the cast was reassembled for a sequel entitled "My Darling Daughter's Anniversary."